This is a FOSS (Free / Open Source Software) implementation of the VideoGame/{{Civilization}} family of turn-based strategy games. Several rule sets are provided allowing for different types of game behavior. In addition, because the source code to the game itself is available, a sufficiently motivated and knowledgeable person can implement changes to the game's behavior beyond anything possible merely by changing the rule set the game uses, including behavior not found in the commercial precursors to this game.

Most things involving it (including downloads) can be found at [[http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page its wiki]].----!!Tropes featured include:* ArtificialStupidity: Computer players are extremely stubborn with "their" territory – build a city on any square they consider to be "theirs," and they'll raze the city – without any diplomacy scene or change in relationship. In fact, if you then attack one of their cities, ''they'll blame you for starting the war''. They never offer you any trades. They are also incapable of building trade routes (in order to boost luxury and grow their city with celebrations), at least at easy difficulty.* BoringButPractical: The ''Adam Smith's Trading Co.'' wonder makes all basic buildings that normally cost one gold per turn upkeep-free. Might not sound like much, but free granaries, harbors, temples, banks, libraries can get you a long way and allow you to allocate more taxes for research because of how much less you have to spend on first-level buildings. Also, it never becomes obsolete.* EasyCommunication: As in all the Civ games, you can instantaneously order around everyone in a civilization spanning continents without any communications tech developed. ZigZagged with diplomacy though: By default you loose contact with other nations 20 turns after encountering their units/territory. Without embassies, you can't exchange tech (only sell yours).* EvilIsEasy: Averted. If you don't attack anyone, the AI won't attack you (at least until the endgame) Some AI players will wage war against each other and you can only ally with one party of each war. But your allies (and with wonder-created embassies in each capital all players) will happily exchange tech, pay you for tech and share maps. They don't really get angry at you that fast either: E.g. always making them pay the maximum price for tech will turn them from friendly to neutral at first and to unfriendly quite a while later. You can reconcile relatively easily by just giving them free tech or money or demanding a bit less Gold. They'll often ask you to join their wars, but not doing so at worst lets them cancel their alliance, and most of the time they'll just go from friendly to neutral and forbid you from viewing their map while still ready to trade maps each round.* FanRemake: Mostly of Civ I and II, but certain features from Civ 3 (like national borders and exchanging cities via diplomacy with other players, only without [[ArtificialStupidity/StrategyGames the AI agreeing to bad deals]]) are also present.* ForeverWar: AI player often go to war very quickly and then fight for centuries, without either side really winning.* GameplayAndStoryIntegration: In the Europe scenario map, your civilization starts at the appropriate place of the map. Normally, your settlers also start at a place with terrain typical for your civilization IRL.* GameplayAutomation: There are build lists that can be applied to new cities so that they automatically construct improvements and troops in the order desired by the player. Cities will also auto-build unless coinage is put in the build queue. Cities can auto-place citizens on tiles/specialist assignments to prioritize Food, Production, Gold, Luxury, Science or Happiness depending on the mayor you choose. Workers, settlers and scouts can be automated as well. You can activate those automations for multiple cities at once from the cities table/tab and by selecting all units of one type.* GeoEffects: Hills and mountains give a big city defense bonus, woods as smaller one. Rivers, roads and railroads allow units to more farther and give a Trade bonus. Like in Civ, all types of terrain produce specific amounts of Food, Gold and Trade, which can be altered with terrain improvements such as mines, irrigation, farms, fortifications etc.* GlassCannon: The game manual urges players to escort Catapults and Cannons with units that can defend them.* GlobalWarming: Each time pollution worsens and global warming advances, the entire world loses coastal land for jungles and swamps, and inland squares are lost to desert. This tends to devastate cities and leads to global impoverishment. Forcing global warming [[http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Global_Warming#Eco-terrorism can be used offensively against other players]].* HundredPercentAdorationRating / APartyAlsoKnownAsAnOrgy: Like in Civ, cities with very happy citizens (possible with various wonders and buildings that make discontent citizens content and increasing Luxury,boosted by caravan trade routes and various buildings, to make content citizens happy) celebrate and instantly grow irrespective of how full their granaries are.* ItemAmplifier: Various wonders multiply the effect of city buildings.* JustOneMoreLevel: Just as bad as the actual Civ games.* LostTechnology: Huts either give you free tech, gold, free units or barbarians.* MultipleEndings: You win by either launching the spaceship first, conquering all other countries (except your allies, with whom you can share the win), or having the most points at the end of the last round.* NecessaryDrawback: There are five forms of government: Despotism, Monarchy, Communism, Republic and Democracy. The latter two grant additional trade resources to tiles, the former three grant a number of upkeep-free military units per city – making the former more useful for a conquest victory and the latter for a spaceship victory, while making it harder to break alliances with other players, as the senate can veto this. Despotism is what you start with and the least useful, because each tile gets Food and Production penalties. There are also various effects on citizen happiness, corruption levels, wonders, units being bribable or not and celebration/revolt likelihood. Changing the government costs the player one to five rounds of anarchy where basically no resources are gained and nothing is produced.* NewTechIsNotCheap: The higher the tech level, the more Bulbs (Science points) a tech costs.* PleaseSelectNewCityName* PoliticallyCorrectHistory: The civilization descriptions are somewhat glorifying, just like in the Civ games.* PopularHistory: PlayedStraight withe the wonders, averted with the civilizations, which are far more numerous than in Civ (though the 50 standard civs, pretty much identical to the civs in Civ, play it straight again)* PyramidPower: The Pyramids grant you the same food bonus as a granary in every city and cumulate with it.* RandomlyGeneratedLevels* TechnologyLevels: As standard for ''Civilization'' games, it uses this only to a certain extent. For example, it is perfectly possible to build Ironclad units without having researched Iron Working, and to build and launch a spaceship without ever having discovered Sanitation.* VastBureaucracy: Represented by the Civ-derived corruption mechanic (cities lose Trade resources), depending on distance from your capital and government type (the more democratic, the less corruption).* VeteranUnit: Units become veterans via combat experience or Barracks in the city building them them. In the experimental ruleset since v2.4.0, even [[http://gna.org/bugs/?19818 workers can become veterans]] from working experience.* WeWillHavePerfectHealthInTheFuture: Just like in Civ I, the ''Cure For Cancer'' wonder bestows +1 happiness.* WorkerUnit: Workers (later engineers) and settlers. The former are commonly used for terrain improvements, roads and railroads, the latter for building new cities, even though they also have all the terrain improvement capabilities.----